


All I Have Is You

by friendlyneighborhoodfairy



Series: Gratsu For a Lifetime [12]
Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Gratsu Week, M/M, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-18
Updated: 2019-07-25
Packaged: 2020-07-08 00:07:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 3,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19860283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/friendlyneighborhoodfairy/pseuds/friendlyneighborhoodfairy
Summary: Natsu kills Zeref...and dies. Gray refuses to move on. He gives everything to get Natsu back, but it'll all be for nothing if Natsu just dies all over again.





	1. Part I: I Am Leaving You Forever

**Author's Note:**

> Based on "Losing You" by Dead By April. I listened to it the other day and this story sprang into being. Written for Gratsu Week 2019 and Gratsu Bingo.
> 
> Spoilers for chapter 506 and beyond. I'm changing canon a bit…
> 
> Prompt 1: pet.

"Natsu—wait—"

Gray wobbled as he watched Natsu turn away, pulling from Erza's grip as if sliding from a bog.

Natsu's eyes were wide, and Gray knew they were both in shock, but even knowing that, somehow seeming to know everything, he couldn't think of anything to say to calm Natsu. Surely if he found the right words, Natsu wouldn't do what he was about to do. Yet, once again, Gray's mind was blank. Just like every other time he'd been in this moment.

As Gray looked him over, he saw the gray-white marks of frost burns on Natsu's brown skin, in between blood and bruises; those were _Gray's_ wounds, his fault, his baggage. That sword cut through his heart and he felt like he was tumbling, rolling through blackness. Natsu, the Natsu he'd loved since forever… Now Gray _really_ couldn't think of what to say. It was too late anyway.

Gray discovered the back of his hand hurt incredibly—he'd been rubbing his eyes or something… He knew rather than saw that the skin was an open bleeding wound from Natsu's fire.

Gray felt _confused_ about that—remembered feeling confused, even though he'd come to terms with it by now. It had made sense mere minutes ago, but here in this moment, it was ludicrous.

"Natsu—"

Gray's voice did not work.

Natsu staggered up the hill, away from them, and Gray darted after him. Erza should've tried to stop him but she didn't, or couldn't—he couldn't remember, couldn't see, was too distracted to try to figure out out, so he didn't. He focused on his strides, each so hard, his feet seeming to slide backward, further and further away.

And it _pierced_ him, because this time he wasn't chasing Natsu as an enemy or even a rival, but as someone who loved him very much.

"Where are you going?" Gray began as he caught up, but Natsu burst into flames before Gray could touch him.

"Up there." Natsu pointed at the distant guildhall. Scales covered his face. Those beautiful, doomed scales. "Got to finish."

Gray's wordless horror reached across the intimate connection they'd always shared. Natsu leaned closer, eyes on his, and Gray wished with everything he had that in that moment he had reached out and hugged Natsu. Run a hand over his cheek. Petted his hair. Kissed him one last time. But he was stubborn and he didn't want to, even while he told himself over and over this…this was going to be…

"I know what I'm doing," Natsu said. "I can do this." And there had never been anything more true and more deceptive.

His fire expanded as he walked away from Gray, scorching, hotter than Gray had ever felt it; he tried to follow, but it burned him, and he yelled at Natsu from the edge as Natsu walked to the guildhall where Zeref was. Alone.

_You always let me come with you. You never shut me out._

Exhausted and hurting, he sank to his knees and cried.

And Gray woke up.


	2. Part II: So Cold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erza knows she can't help him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 2: voice.

Gray was sweating in the bed, cold and shivering. Erza rolled closer to him, but Gray flailed and nearly hit her, kicking off the covers and making sounds that didn't tell her whether he was awake or sleeping.

When he did wake up, crying, she was still awake. She held him while he sobbed, clutching at her, and curling up against her like a little child.

She didn't try to speak. Her voice did not reach him when he was like this. He listened to no one, understood nothing. His nightmares were his reality.

So she just held on, and pretended not to break.

He fell asleep eventually in a puddle of his own sweat and tears, hair tangled and body trembling, and Erza couldn't stop crying.


	3. Part III: I Can't See You Walk Away

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ashes floated away on the wind... Gray can't forget and he doesn't want to remember.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 3: flying.

After Natsu had gone to fight Zeref, Gray had followed (when the flames blocking him were gone), and he'd arrived just in time to watch his boyfriend punch victoriously into Zeref's torso and _through_ his body, the fire blinding, and right as Gray had been smiling in victory, Natsu turned to him, and Gray saw something was wrong, and right there in front of him, Natsu dissolved.

Gray would never forget chasing the ash that wafted away, the bits of Natsu's body flying on the wind.

Natsu's soul was still there somewhere, that was still _Natsu._ Yet Gray was terrified to touch the flakes in case he broke something, in case Natsu stopped existing.

In case floating ashes were all that were left.

Gray would never forget the last look of self-hating apology on Natsu's face.


	4. Part IV: Life is Disconnecting Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gray had nothing to live for, so it's okay if he lives unhealthily.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 4: water.

Gray knew, from knowing Ultear, that an obsession with changing what had already happened wasn't healthy. Was an addiction, a refusal to grieve, a way of turning off the real world and getting wrapped up in one's wishes.

It didn't stop him.

Just like her, that obsession was all he had. He didn't _want_ to be a healthy, normal human being. He didn't want to mourn, grow, and live his life. He didn't want his life if there was no Natsu in it.

It never occurred to him to take his own life, because then who would revive Natsu? Besides, he'd sworn to Natsu he would never seek to do that again. That option was quite simply off the table.

So Gray spent the next forty years of his life entrenched in the world of time magic and Lost spells.

His life ticked away and his friends worried and tried to get him to stop, but one by one they let him be, until Erza was the only one left. Once or twice a year, she'd come visit him, listen to his progress. She wouldn't say a word of judgment; she'd learned it was useless. So she'd just listen. And then she'd talk, about what was happening in her life, and Gray would feel human again, for just a day, and the ache would settle in his chest. He needed Natsu back so he could feel again for real.

Time flowed like water, and Gray learned to disregard it. He learned to manipulate it. He learned to stop feeling it, to step out of the river completely.

After four decades, Gray's hair was receding at the temples and he'd grown out his beard. He talked to himself—and Natsu—in the mirror and ached after a long day in the library poring over books. Natsu would hardly recognize him, he thought with a smile. He hardly recognized himself.

On a quiet, warm spring day, Gray put the final pieces together.

The next day, in an ordinary room with an ordinary breeze blowing in, alone and content, nobody there to witness…Gray activated his spell.

* * *

The magic burned through his body. It was scorching, a feeling Gray hadn't had since Natsu's death, and he braced against it, wondering if he'd come through this with scars. When it felt his skin would melt, Gray started to worry he'd done it wrong—but in the next instant, his body was vaporizing and he thought no more at all.


	5. Part V: It is All That I'm Waiting For

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gray gets Natsu back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 5: dreams.

Gray woke up in his bed in Magnolia, with the day calendar on the wall showing the last day of August, x792. His back was not tight and his feet were not swollen and his joints felt smooth—something he'd never noticed when he was younger, but which he could definitely tell now.

Beside him in the bed lay Natsu.

Snoring slightly, mouth open as he stretched starfish-like across the mattress, Natsu looked happy in whatever his dreams were. He was in his boxers and had kicked off the comforter, typical for the ever-burning fire dragon.

Shaking uncontrollably, Gray touched Natsu's arm and felt warm, living flesh.

Gray burst into tears.

They came silently at first, rocking him as the emotions piled up and up and up, and then they were pouring out of him, cascading, tears unstoppable and his breathing growing more ragged with each inhale.

Natsu snorted awake, saw him, and grabbed him by the shoulders with concern on his beautiful face.

"What happened?" Natsu asked. "Gray? Was it a nightmare? What was it? Gray!"

Gray cried harder. That voice. Hearing it was like a dream, a thing of distant memory suddenly made real again.

_It was really Natsu._

He had turned back time and place the dream reality.


	6. Part VI: All The Nights That I've Prayed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gray needs Natsu's cooperation to keep him alive. But convincing him will be hard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 6: breath.

They'd just returned from rescuing Master from Alvarez. The war hadn't even begun, Natsu didn't know his connection to Zeref, and Gray had several weeks to prepare.

He'd been planning for this for forty years.

Taking a breath, Gray squeezed Natsu's hand and prepared to tell him. Natsu needed to know just enough to keep him from interfering—to keep him from misinterpreting and trying to stop Gray. His strategy to win this war depended on Natsu _not being involved._

How to explain that to Natsu without pissing him off…

Gray had decided on some of the truth.

"I know you're not going to believe me," Gray began. "It's going to sound ridiculous, and that's okay. I'd scoff too. But I have a weird request, and it won't make sense without context, so…

"I've already lived through what's going to happen. You died destroying Zeref. I spent years searching for other ways to defeat him before coming back here to do it right."

"I know," Natsu said.

Gray was expecting a reaction, and so the words didn't process for a minute.

"You know?" he asked.

"I remember," Natsu nodded. "You spent three years searching for the Lost Library, and when you found it, you made it your home for the next forty years. You went silver in your thirties and the only person you still talked to was Erza. I know, Gray."

Gray gaped at him.

"H-How?"

Natsu shrugged. "I was dead. So I hung out with you. When you reversed things…I just kind of started existing again. Maybe that's why I remember."

"Nobody else should," Gray said, frowning, overwhelmed. "I wanted to save them the heartache too—and we're going to save everyone this time. Nobody is dying: not Laxus, not Yukino, not Wendy. No one would ever know that there was once a world where they didn't exist. I couldn't stand…Freed…Chelia…she at least moved on. He never could."

"Unable to let go," Natsu murmured, handing coming to rest against Gray's neck. "Just like you."

His eyes were sad and understanding. Like he didn't judge Gray, but nevertheless wished for more.

It had never occurred to Gray that Natsu would want him to move on.

Gray exhaled, feeling like it was his first breath.


	7. Part VII: Must This All Be Untrue?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gray's plan to kill Zeref but keep Natsu alive isn't working...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 7: scarf.

It couldn't fail. No. Gray planned so well. The Iced Shell which came not from his own body, but from the body he'd abandoned in the other timeline. A sacrifice he'd gladly make, in order to keep this reality, the true reality, healthy.

But Zeref was still moving, straining against the ice even as it encased him, dark magic pulsing and melting it as fast as Gray could create it.

Was an already-erased body not enough? Was it not a big enough sacrifice?

"Int…eresting," Zeref struggled. "Someone has been playing with time."

Gray's stomach dropped.

Behind him, fire erupted.

_No,_ he thought, watching Zeref cracking through the ice now, knowing all his carefully-laid plans wouldn't be enough…

Natsu couldn't do this again, couldn't force Gray to watch, a second time, as he gave up his life—no. _No._

Gray would rather die.


	8. Part VIII: I Just Can't Believe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gray can't speak.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 8: Hair.

Cracking open an eye, Gray's vision swam around, taking in skies and bricks and Natsu's smiling face.

"Hey there, snowflake," Natsu murmured. He chuckled and brushed a hand through Gray's hair. "You look like you got put through a toaster."

"I _did_ g—"

Gray broke off when his voice cracked and shattered into silence, rough with pain. Fuck.

 _What happened?_ he mouthed.

Natsu's face fell into concern matching the confused worry on Gray's.

"By that, are you asking how we're both alive?" he asked. "I don't know."

_"Hhh—He…"_

"Zeref is gone," Natsu soothed, rubbing Gray's back, his shoulders, before drawing both hands up into his hair again. With Gray lying on his back looking up at Natsu's face and the blue sky, Natsu played with the hair around his face and smiled wistfully at him. "I burned. I burned him up. I don't know why I'm still here. You held onto me and you froze—I was so scared you were gonna die in my flames, but you froze so cold, and I held onto you, and…here we are."

"You should've let me come with you the first time," Gray whispered.

Who knew if it were true, and it wasn't helpful to say, and it didn't ultimately mean anything, but he still had to say it.

"I had you this time," Natsu said, and pulled him gently into a kiss.


	9. Part IX: All I Have Is You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gray wants to change time again. For Natsu. Natsu resists for good reason.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 9: Time.

"Please don't," Natsu said, watching Gray toy with the ring on his finger.

"Huh?"

"Don't mess with time anymore, love." Natsu looked at him with pleading eyes. "It's enough. Let it go."

"I could fix it so easily. It's not a huge spell like—"

"That doesn't matter," Natsu insisted. "I'll be okay. It's just a scar. I have lots of scars. You like my scars."

"You lost your arm, Natsu." Gray's voice broke but he managed to hold onto his expression, closing his eyes as he willed the tears back inside his heart. "It won't be easy."

"No," Natsu agreed. "But I've got my husband to help out. It's an adventure, right? We get to figure this out together. It'll be hard, and it'll probably be hilarious too, and it'll be different. We won't get bored."

"As if I could ever get bored of you," Gray smiled.

"That's the thing: you would eventually," Natsu said. "You keep trying to manipulate the flow of time to keep things the same. But that's not how life works. As shit happens, we grow and adapt and change; we're damaged and we heal; we crack and try not to shatter; we learn how to say goodbye; we learn how to recognize hello.

"That's what life is, Gray. If you freeze everything…nothing will happen anymore, and then why are we alive? What are we living for together? We're here for adventures. That's always what we were here for, love, and that hasn't changed for me. I want to go on a wild ride with you. I want to be scared and overcome it. With you. Don't you want that?"

"I…" Gray's voice was tiny. "I hate being scared."

Natsu kissed his temple. "So do I. So does everyone. But being scared gives us a chance to learn how to keep living in spite of fear."

"I'd prefer it to go away."

"For there to be no fear, there'd have to be no risk," Natsu said, mouth twisting. "Where's the fun in that?"

"Stability, for one."

"Stability is something you create for yourself amid your circumstances," Natsu scoffed. "It was a risk when I agreed to go out with you. I knew I liked you a lot, and I knew you could break my heart. I was scared, but I did it anyway. I was scared watching you sit in that library day after day with no purpose to your life, never getting outside and living…but I stayed by your side anyway, and it was worth it. I learned new things about you, watching you from my side of the veil. Every fear in my life has led me to something incredible."

Gray took Natsu's hand—his one, remaining, beautiful hand, the ringless one—and let out a breath.

"I love you," he said.

"Love me for who I am," Natsu said. "Right now. Love me like this."

"I will," Gray said. "I do."


	10. Part X: All I Need Is You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Death gave Natsu perspective.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 10: Sunflower.

"Hey, Sunflower."

Gray's arms appeared in Natsu's peripheral and wrapped around his shoulders from behind.

"What's happening?" Gray asked, kissing Natsu's neck.

"Just thinking."

"Thinking?"

"Yeah."

Reaching up, Natsu rubbed his thumb over Gray's hands.

"Thinking can be dangerous," Gray said, nipping his ear.

Natsu grinned.

"Would you rather I be doing than thinking?" Natsu asked.

Gray hummed, running his teeth down Natsu's neck while one of his hands explored down the front of Natsu's shirt.

"I was thinking," Natsu said, hand running up Gray's wrist, "about finding the Lost Library."

Gray stopped.

"What?"

Twisting, Natsu faced him, staying in Gray's arms, which had gone loose. Smiling, he ran his hand over Gray's cheek.

"Think about it. All that knowledge there? All those spells? We could learn so much."

A doubtful crease ran between Gray's eyebrows; Natsu smoothed it with a hand.

"Maybe we'll understand more about the Dragon Slayer powers," Natsu prompted, letting his excitement show a little. "And why the demonic stuff appears in my body on occasion and then disappears. We might finally understand."

"Yeah," Gray said slowly. "That could be worth it."

"I'm dragging you with me," Natsu said, enjoying his husband's surprised and obstinate look. "You need to know about this too; you're a dragon's mate, after all."

"Oh, har," Gray growled, pulling away in order to get his hands around Natsu's hips. He tilted his head against Natsu's collarbone. "Sunflower, are you sure it's safe?"

Natsu knew what he meant. Rubbing Gray's back, he tried to knead away the anxiety, the fear of what he once was and could become again.

"I won't let you get sucked into that," he murmured. "Besides, I'm here. What do you need to undo?"

"Plenty," Gray snorted, but it sounded like a rote protest.

"The world will always be fucked up," Natsu said. "We're figuring it out together. We'll always get through together."

"I need you," Gray murmured.

It had stopped being a plaintive thing long ago; was now just a fact, a facet of who they were as a couple. They'd lived two pasts and Natsu knew all Gray's weaknesses.

Death had grown Natsu up in ways he couldn't have imagined, and he understood Gray better.

Pulling him in across the last bit of distance, Natsu tucked Gray's head under his chin.

"You're all I need," Natsu murmured into his hair. "We've got this together."


End file.
